I recently took a monumental step in my academic career: I applied to graduate from college. I know, I’m actually going to be allowed to adult, and no one is more surprised or scared than I am.
I was also surprised by how much of an ordeal it was to apply to graduate.
You think that it’s going to be easy, because there’s no way that one piece of paper can cause too much trouble. Then you realize that you were very wrong, and that piece of paper actually takes over your life for a week.
If your major requires an internship (one of mine does), you have to fill out and submit those forms first. And some majors (including one of mine) requires students to fill out a form outlining their course history, to make sure they have completed all of the major requirements.
So while the actual graduation application is only one piece of paper, by the time you actually get to the application, you’ve already filled out several other forms.
In addition, I’m double majoring, which means I have twice as many forms to fill out and twice as many signatures to get.
Speaking of signatures, that’s the worst part of the struggle that is applying to graduate. It would be challenging enough to run around campus getting all of the required signatures if you only had to make one trip. But instead, every professor has their office hours at different times on different days, so it feels like you’re always rushing back to campus for a two minute meeting.
Meeting with an advisor is allegedly something you’re supposed to do every semester. For everyone who actually made that happen, good for you. I admire your dedication. I’ve seen an advisor twice in my whole academic career. Some majors, including one of mine, don’t have formal advising (my other major does, yet I still managed to see my advisor for the first time to get my application signed). This makes getting advising a little more challenging because you don’t know who to see, but on a positive note, you can see any professor you like for advising.
Different department chairs will show various amounts of caring in the graduation application process. Some will thoroughly examine your academic requirements report, will others will scan it quickly for red boxes and then take your word for it. The department chair for one of my majors signed my application when I wasn’t even there. I just left it in a pile with the department’s administrative analyst and the department chair signed all of the applications at once. Go figure.
And because the application is only a few days into the semester, all of this has to be done in quick succession.
It’s a stressful couple of days, rushing to fill out forms and get them signed, but turning in that application and seeing the culmination of all of your hard work is so rewarding!
Congratulations class of 2017!